PERSISTENT ASYMMETRIES IN CONNECTIVITY AMONG WEAKFISH SUB-POPULATIONS ALONG THE EAST COAST OF THE U.S.

Quantifying connectivity among sub-populations of marine fish remains a significant hurdle in fisheries management, the design of marine reserves, and determining essential fish habitat. Using stable isotope and trace element signatures in otoliths as natural tags of natal origin, we were able to quantify population connectivity among sub-populations of weakfish along the east coast of the U.S. Natal homing of spawning weakfish was far more prevalent that we expected. Homing rates were quite variable among estuaries, but remarkably consistent among 3 age classes and 2 annual cohorts. It should, therefore, be possible to construct realistic dispersal kernels for each of the sub-populations, which could in turn be used to parameterize a coast-wide spatially-explicit model of the weakfish metapopulation.